Financial planning/budgeting/sorting yourself for normal people- NOT high net worth

[Fayrazzled]

Does this service exist? My husband and I really need to get on top of our finances this year and could do with some help. Happy to pay someone for their time and understand it won't be cheap- but does this service exist?

What are you trying to sort? Have you got debt? If you’ve got money to invest, how much m, how regularly and what do you currently have re savings, mortgage and pensions?

This is a government-funded service (used to be called the money advice service): https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en

You'd be better upskilling and sorting it yourself as there's nothing you can't do yourself and it's good to understand the process, what's best for you etc.

Look at

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

also the weekly email.

The financial flowchart is also a good 'to do' list of what to think about.

https://ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

As well as the Meaningful Money podcast. People also recommend Rebel Finance, but I've not seen that.

Having said that, if you're determined to pay someone, but I suspect it is more 'hand holding'/advice rather than actually doing the things for you, then I've heard Meaningful Money talking about this sort of coaching, and Octopus have a Money Coach service.

Assuming you’re not talking about debt management (there are specialist organisations for that), any competent IFA ought to be able to help. Perhaps look for one who says they do financial planning. It probably won’t be cheap, though.

Thanks for your advice. To be honest, we are more than capable of doing it ourselves it is just time and accountability. We do have some debt we need to sort out, still have some mortgage and our pensions need a review especially as my husband is self-employed. No investments. Given our income, which is higher than average albeit nowhere near some on here, we should be in a better position and we need to sort it out.

Watch YouTube’s. We watch this one from ‘athomewithshan’ and she has an excel spreadsheet for all her incoming & outgoing money that’s on Etsy for about £3. (You could make it yourself but who’s got the time). We have done it this year & it’s been life changing! Also open an account like Monzo where you can have ‘pots’. We allocate all our money to pots for the month and once it’s spent, that’s it as that’s what we have budgeted for!

Great advice, thank you. We just need to make this a priority and focus on it.

At the very basic level, the first thing you need to do is work out where your income is going (why you're not in the position you think you should be), and then to work out where you need it to go. The first is tracking, the second is budgeting.

For tracking, you can either look at what you spent, or going forward, record what you spent. It's hard for other people to assist with that, because you will know better than they do which transactions were discretionary and which were mandatory. For budgeting, external advisers can help set out what you need to be assigning funds to.

Foe what it's worth, once I started tracking I realised that a lot of my income was going on things like boiler repairs, replacing appliances, a new fence when the old one blew over... I wasn't blowing it all on avocado toast, but I wasn't budgeting for unavoidable life expenses and as a result, I had a lot less disposable income than I'd assumed

My IFA did this for me and also holds me accountable through periodic reviews.

Good luck! I'm retired and have an IFA recommended by my sister and it's the best thing I've done financially. They even do my tax return, which gives you an idea of how useless I am.

You have to allocate time for this. Big effort now to set out your financial position, of income, outgoings, savings and debt. Use a spreadsheet to do this. Use next year to refine both income from forgotten sources such as interest and gifts on birthdays, and forgotten outgoings like insurance and car expenses. Easily added in to spreadsheet columns.

Then a monthly meeting with OH on a Sunday over coffee and the spreadsheet and it is done. Easy and such a good feeling.

Following.

I’ve done this for myself…you really need to invest time and effort upfront to get on track, but it’s totally worth it.

id recommend Dave Ramsey Baby Steps up to about step 3, then switch to Rebel Finance School (or RFS from beginning). You’ll find everything you need on FB and YT.

I was heavily in debt (think verge of bankruptcy!) around 25yrs ago. Today I’m debt and mortgage free, and I retired early at 56 in 2025 with a really good pension pot.

So it’s doable…but with effort.

Look up YNAB (You Need A Budget). I am really quite good with money but plan on using it this year to prioritise our savings more. I have read a lot about it, and many people on MN (and elsewhere) have found it life changing.

Excel is you friend here! Spreadsheet with 3 columns, first is money in, both paye type income and net profits from self employed businesses, any interest, share, pension income etc. plus benefit income if applicable. Second column are fixed outgoings (or semi fixed) like mortgage, childcare, utility payments, telecommunications, loans, subscriptions etc. Third column are variables like food, petrol, and so on, the things that you could potentially reduce. Column a minus b&c tells you what monthly surplus is. Separately write from your last 3 months bank statements all the non essential expenses you made, including coffee shops, meals out, kids activities which aren’t childcare for work, clothes, days out etc, see what you are really spending then you can tackle the issue. Prioritise all debts excluding mortgage or things with a fixed term not economic to break, living without debt is so much simpler (you have to save for the things you want though). You don’t need to pay £500 to have someone do this with you but that’s how much I’ve been told I should charge (I’m considering setting up a service) I also do debt counselling but that is free through a charity

We are in this position too!
Husband is main earner and self employed, his income fluctuates wildly - even with an accountant we still have not got on top of it properly and seriously need to get a hold on it this year!
Watching post with interest...

If you have limited money then please don't spend it you need a budget app or even worse an IFA fees. Start by educating yourself for free. Maybe watched the rebel finance school free videos on YouTube to start off the process. Track your spending, for free using your own banking app or a spreadsheet or even a notebook. Then identify your debt and goals etc, next come up with a plan to start saving a rainy day fund then an ISA. Lots of free resources will guide you. Good luck.

This sounds exactly like us. We have higher than average income but just throw stuff on the credit card and not clear it each month, it really cannot carry on like this. I have done the monzo pots as above and we are completely stopping using the credit cards. If we let little things like car MOT on in (essentials) then we end up just using it for everything and lose track.
I have an excel spreadsheet with it all on, I really like that financial flow chart above - My mind had started going into overdrive wondering if we should be putting money into cash / S&S ISAs before clearing 0% credit cards debt, but it's showed me that this is step 1. Once this is complete I am going to look into some of the suggested youtube channels. I don't want to do it early as I'll just annoy myself that I have debt that needs clearing before I can start doing some of it. Also some might say actually yeah do ISAs instead of clearing the 0% debt, I've toyed with it in my head for a while now, but I think personally for us we are better off starting all that sort of stuff with a clean slate of finances.

It is definitely made more difficult by the self-employed thing. So difficult to budget properly when you don't know what you will have coming in but we can't keep using that as an excuse.

Thanks so much for all your responses. I really need to get to grips with this. I keep putting it off because it seems so overwhelming but we need to sort ourselves out.

https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/course-notes/week-1/

Episode 1. It's long but very easy to understand and designed to get you thinking about your own big picture.

Just to give an update. I have water the first Rebel Finance video- very good and motivating. I have downloaded the Etsy file recommended and started to populate it and my husband and I have a chat booked in for tomorrow. I'm feeling more positive and less overwhelmed but also realise we need to reign in our spending and decide on priorities which might make for some uncomfortable discussions. I've also downloaded the Snoop app to help track spending.

@Fayrazzled how strange - I've just asked a similar question to yours in another thread!

"Can I ask a possibly daft question, please?
I know that financial advisors obviously exist but are there professionally trained people who can look at your finances (like we are all doing in the thread) and guide you to through how best to reduce this debt? I'm thinking of a paid for service, rather than a charity or Citizens Advice etc. They would need to not be trying to sell products/investments/ pensions at the same time!
Do these people exist? If so, can you recommend anyone?
I've always wondered this & if they don't exist, what a great service to develop.
Thanks."

It does sound like an IFA would help but I didn't want to be batting them off if they try to sell me something! I'm like you, I'm sure I could work it out myself if I had the time to research the best way, but I would like the reassurance of some expert guidance.

To be honest, having now populated a budget and discussed it with my husband, it wasn't that difficult to do. Perhaps a few hours work all in. We are going to open a new joint bank account to help us get better organised too. We have some credit card debt (but less than I thought) so we are going to focus on paying that off- highest rate first and also look for a balance transfer deal. I am feeling much more positive. We have agreed to track our spending and meet every Sunday to discuss.

Thanks @Fayrazzled . Your plan sounds like a good one. I do think one of my challenges is getting DH on board with the whole saving money or at least not wasting it on buying lunch every day at work! Yes, maybe a Sunday sit down is what we need to make us focus!

I've just looked at the Rebel Finance link that someone kindly shared & I'm going to work through the Excel videos on YT as spreadsheets are another challenge for me 😬

I bet it feels satisfying doing the work yourself. Thanks for the thread & your reply.